


Like This

by Monbanart



Series: How to Train Your Dragonlord [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Immortal Leon, Immortal Merlin, M/M, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 01:04:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11220015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monbanart/pseuds/Monbanart
Summary: No magic before coffee.  Unless it's super duper important.





	Like This

**Author's Note:**

> A billion thanks to my beautiful beta, [clotpolesonly](http://archiveofourown.org/users/clotpolesonly). Any errors within are my own failures, not hers. She's perfection and I'll hunt you down if you feel otherwise.
> 
> This is for Tish, who believes, like I do, that the world needs more MerLeon. And my sister, Jeff, who is the wind beneath my wings and the Percival to my Gwaine. And Trista, who gave this wee thing its name, along with love whilst hiding from her children in the bathroom.

_God, I love him like this._  

Over the centuries, Merlin had seen Leon’s body change shape with his livelihood - from the hard coiled muscles of a battle hardened knight - an occupation which had lasted far longer than Merlin had wanted, to the slightly softer, more rounded muscles of a carpenter - the occupation which, though changing in nature over the years, had kept him busy since.

He let his hands, strong and sure, roam over Leon’s chest, scratching lightly through the dark hair.  It was a deep red there, unlike the strawberry of the curls around his ears and very much like the cinnamon of the curls around his cock - a cock which begged for attention, bobbing slightly with each rotation of Merlin’s hips against Leon’s backside.

Stretched out beneath him, long legs tossed over his shoulders and arms raised above his head to grip the headboard of their bed, Leon was the image of want and need and lust.  His face and throat were red with desire and damp with sweat, and his eyes were heavy lidded but boiling with hunger. 

“Merlin,” he threatened, voice low and deep, “I swear on all things you deem holy that if you do not stop fucking about and start actually fucking _me_ I will bloody well _find_ a way to kill you.” 

Merlin dropped suddenly to his elbows on either side of Leon’s face and nipped his pout with sharp teeth.  “Promises, promises,” he purred before snapping his hips sharply and catching Leon’s gasp with a kiss.  He didn’t stop ‘fucking about’ though, as Leon had called his lazy teasing, and simply rolled his hips again, a slow torturous and blissful agony.  He smirked, pressing his face into Leon’s throat, licking at the sweat and salt there and sucked a deep bruise over his pulse point.  The sounds Leon made drove him mad with lust and giddy with childish delight.  They had spent the better part of a millennium and a half together and could _still_ take one another apart in bed.  And Merlin loved it, loved him. 

Finally deciding he’d tortured the poor man long enough he leaned back enough to look deep into his eyes before asking, “Magic or no?” giving his hips another quick snap against the back of Leon’s thighs.  He watched with amusement as Leon’s inner battle played out across his face.  

Sex with his magic involved was wildly exciting, and devastatingly exhausting.  Leon craved it like a drug, and Merlin loved to satisfy that craving when the need got to be overwhelming - but sex without it was pretty fantastic, too, having time and experience on their side.  With magic, Leon would likely lose consciousness afterward, and Merlin understood the drive for that high but hated to see him so thoroughly vulnerable, especially tonight when he had plans for afterward. 

“Just you, tonight,” he whispered, taking a hand down from the headboard to brush Merlin’s dark curls from his forehead.  “Just us.” 

“Just us,” he echoed, reverent, and drew his hips back and began a slow and gentle rhythm, kissing Leon’s cheeks tenderly where sentimental tears had wet them. 

\--

Despite having plans, Leon had fallen into a deep sleep afterward and Merlin was too content, too filled with love, to do anything but snuggle into his chest and join him.  When morning broke, their positions had changed, and Leon’s golden red curls were splayed out across Merlin’s chest, mingling with his own soft black hairs, one arm curled possessively around his ribs. 

 _God, I love him like this._  

Merlin arched his back slightly under the weight and stretched gently.  With a small smile his eyes flashed a brilliant silver and gold, the top drawer of his bureau gliding silently open and closing again once the small box had floated out of it.  Merlin raised the arm not holding Leon against his chest and caught it as it drew near. 

“No magic before coffee,” Leon grumbled against his chest.  

“This is important magic, though.”  Leon shifted and squinted up into Merlin’s face and scowled to find wide blue eyes, faking innocence when he knew so much better.  “I promise.  Super duper important magickey things.” 

“Oh, well then.  If it’s ‘super duper’ I suppose it’s alright.”   

In response to that, Merlin flicked his wrist deftly before Leon’s face and held his palm flat - the small black box perched at its centre.  “Behold,” he whispered dramatically. 

“Oh my god, Merlin, if you pull a fucking rabbit out of that box, I’m going to smother you with it.”  Leon bounced gently against Merlin as he laughed. 

Once he’d regained some semblance of maturity, he replied, “No.  No rabbits.  I was hoping to pull out a husband, though.”  He chewed his bottom lip as he watched Leon’s face change from annoyed to confused to shocked.   “Open it.” 

Leon scrambled to sit up, arranging his long legs criss crossed between their bodies so he could look at Merlin’s face.  His hands reached for the box, but hesitated.  Merlin cracked it open and laid it on his chest, facing Leon so he could see the contents. 

Merlin had worked with a skilled jeweller and artist to get it just right.  They’d recreated Leon’s family crest, a crest long forgotten with the crumbling of Camelot’s great towers lifetimes ago, winding through a wide band of white gold.  Hidden inside, engraved with great care, were the words, “With Honour and Pride” written in the long dead language of their birth. 

Leon swallowed several times, eyes shining with emotion, before he whispered, “What if he comes back?” 

Merlin’s heart broke, as it always did when either of them brought Arthur to mind, ancient wounds reopening.  He sat up, holding the box with his hand once again and kissed the corners of Leon’s mouth. 

“When,” he swallowed, clearing his throat as well, “when he comes back, he will find his worst servant but best friend and his most loyal First Knight are united in the bonds of marriage, a united front to help him fulfill his destiny as the Once and Future King.” 

“But you love him, Merlin.”  

“Don’t you love him, too?  How is it different?” 

“I loved him as my king and as my friend.” 

“Me too.” 

“Merlin,” Leon chastised him.  He had been around far too long to believe Merlin’s lies. 

Sighing, and closing the box, Merlin took Leon’s hands in his.  “I’m going to tell you something I’ve never wanted to discuss.  Not once in the last fifteen hundred years have I wanted to relive this.  But it’s important that I do, that I share it with you.”  He closed his eyes and plunged himself back to Camlann and to those last terrible days with Arthur. 

“I told him it was me, you know.  That I was a sorcerer.  He panicked, Leon.  He told me to leave him, get out of his sight.  Gaius made him go with me to the Isle of the Blessed, to seek their help to heal him.  But he was afraid of me.”  Tears formed in his eyes but would not fall; it was far too late for regret.  “He was so angry.  He accused me of lying, of betraying him.  In the end, before he - well.  He wanted me to comfort him, hold him.  He told me thank you.  But he never forgave me.  My heart shattered that day, Leon.  Not because he’d died.  But because I lost him completely before he did. 

“I thought it was my punishment to live this damned endless life without his forgiveness, his understanding, for having turned my back on my destiny - for only caring about his safety toward the end.  Maybe it is.  I don’t know.  But,” he took Leon’s face between his hands, stroking his thumbs over that beautiful face and continued, “but you, Leon.  You.”

He shifted slightly, picking up the box once again in his hands, “When I came back to Camelot and told you all, Gwen and the rest of the knights, about what had happened, who I am - do you remember what you said to me then?”  Leon shook his head slightly, blue eyes locked on Merlin’s.  “You said, ‘what a burden you have carried, my friend’.  Nothing more, nothing less.  No fear, no anger or resentment.  You just accepted me as I am, understood me far better than anyone else.  For that, I will be eternally grateful, Leon.  For that, I will always love you, even above Arthur.”  The small hitch in Leon’s breath made Merlin smile, soft and small. 

“Long before I realized what the Druid’s Cup of Life had done to you, granting you not only a chance to cheat death, but to share with me this immortal life, I loved you.” 

Leon’s breath shuddered and his tears spilled over, wetting Merlin’s hands beneath them.  “I love you, so goddamned much, you beautiful idiot.” 

Merlin’s eyes brightened, slightly, the ache easing within his chest.  “Is that a yes?”  Leon smirked and got up from their bed, unashamed in his nudity before this man who had thoroughly seen it all, and began rifling through the bottom drawer of his side of the bureau.  Though he was enjoying the view, Merlin grew anxious with the lack of reply.  “Leon?” 

Giving a small hoot of triumph, Leon turned and quickly tossed something at Merlin whose eyes instinctively blazed with magic, halting it before it hit him.  Once his eyes focused on the object before his face, his hands quickly snatched it out of the air.  With his heart racing, he flung open the small velvet box, nearly identical to the one he’d given Leon. 

Inside was a ring, carefully crafted with interlacing dragon scales, also carefully engraved around its inside.  Merlin squinted at the inscription, surprised to see runes instead of Roman lettering.  “The Love That Binds Us” it said.

“Is greater than the power we wield,” Leon whispered, returning to the bed, completing the quote for him.  “Merlin of Ealdor, Son of Hunith and the Last Dragonlord, The Great Emrys, and dimpled simpleton,” he smiled and kissed Merlin’s mouth, lips parted in surprise and awe, “I’d be honoured to make you an honest man.” 

“Wow.  All that before coffee?”  Merlin smirked and lunged forward, crashing their lips together in a hungry kiss, overflowing with emotion.  He reclined again, pulling Leon’s body over his, grunting happily as he settled between his parted legs.  Their kiss slowed somewhat, but stayed deep and passionate.  When Leon hitched his hips, nudging his growing cock along Merlin’s, their kiss broke with a mutual groan. 

“Before this gets any harder,” he said, causing Merlin to snort with mirth at the pun, “coffee is actually required.  And breakfast.”  Leon moved away, pulling Merlin to sit up on the bed as he stood and moved away.  Merlin pouted fiercely. 

“Why?” he moaned quite pathetically.  “I like it ‘harder’.” 

“I know you do, you harlot.  But, my whiny warlock, we need to eat.  We need to get our energy up.” 

Flopping back against the pillows in disgust, Merlin crossed his arms before his chest and pouted, “What for?” 

Leon was busy rifling the drawers again, pulling out two pairs of underpants and tossed one at Merlin’s face before answering.  “Because, we just got engaged after fifteen centuries, Merlin.  I want to celebrate properly.” 

Merlin yanked the pants off his face and scowled at his new fiance.  “Uh, hello?  That’s exactly what we were doing, Prudey McPrudePants.” 

Leon prowled over to the bed, settling his now clothed bum firmly against Merlin’s flagging erection, and licked his tongue into Merlin’s mouth, quick and filthy.  “Yes, but I want to celebrate,” he ground his arse against Merlin, making him groan again, before tonguing the shell of his ear and breathing hot and sultry into it, “with _magic_.”   

Merlin’s magic snapped to attention faster than his cock had, nearly searing his innards with its flare.  He growled then, frustrated and furious with want.  “Get off me then and let’s eat, for the sake of every god we have ever known.  Because I plan on letting my magic fuck you into next week for your horrible cockteasing.” 

Leon hopped up and dashed toward their kitchen, laughing all the way, leaving Merlin flushed and frustrated to put his pants on in peace.  Merlin picked up the pair of rings and slipped his on.  Smiling down at it, and its companion cradled in his palm, he had one final thought before joining Leon in the kitchen. 

_God, I love him like this._


End file.
